Sticky Situation: Avoid a Shawn Simoes Dismissal With This Test

What you say and do, even outside of your working hours, may lead to your dismissal.

You don't believe me?

Ask Shawn Simoes. This former Hydro One Sunshine List employee, no longer receives his annual salary of more than $100,000.

"Why? On what grounds?", you ask.

For disrespecting a woman.

It's on this past Mother's Day, after the Toronto FC versus the Houston Dynamo soccer match, that the now fired employee, defended sexist obscenities, said by another fan, to Shauna Hunt, a CityNews sports reporter. He went on and on and on, live, on camera.

His employer -- same as you and I -- saw this now viral video and quickly took steps to discharge him.

In front of the camera, or not, at the office or at a soccer match, in a corporate suit or a team jersey, before or after 17:00, on Monday or Saturday, such words are always sexual discrimination and harassment. What we've all heard breached the Code of Conduct and the Values of this public company, and probably those of your employer.

The reporter and the provincial employer are not the only ones that were outraged by these remarks. Kathleen Wynne, Ontario's Premier, and the Toronto FC soccer club, are too. And probably like me, you are too.

Obviously this man had a great lapse in judgment. He needs to reflect on his values.

This dismissal is an extreme example. The vast majority of you will never say such vulgar comments. They are against your beliefs. I sincerely think so.

Solution(s):

But what about all the other times when you are having a "good time," do you ever ask yourself if what you say or do, could get you fired?

If you answered "yes," even with a shy slightly embarrassed smile, I suggest that you filter your words and actions with the Two Fridge Test.

Prior to immortalizing a moment, visualize them on the two refrigerators in your life; the one at home and the one at work.

First, mentally review the could be photos, comments or scene, on the fridge in your home kitchen. Imagine your mother popping in for a visit. She has your favourite meal: a lasagna. Are you comfortable with what she will see on your fridge's door? Your seven-year-old sister and your 77-year-old grandmother accompany her. Are you still OK with what this trio is looking at?

Now take the same words and/or actions, post them on the refrigerator in the lunchroom at your place of work. Big Boss invites Big Client to have a coffee in that room. They both go to the fridge to get milk for their coffees. Are you blushing at the thought of what they will see?

If you answered "No" to both questions, and you are comfortable with all that is posted on the two fridges of your lives; personal and professional, go ahead. Say it. Publish your photos. Display your comments. Download the video.

If you hesitated, even just a little, don't do it.

In the era of virtual stars, where clicks may bring instant fame or destroy a reputation in seconds, before posting all over the planet, protect your "bread and butter," do the Two Fridges Test.

You have a sticky situation at work or at home? This is your forum. Write to Julie and she will reply promptly. Want more solutions to sticky situations? Go to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or order your autographed copy of Etiquette: Confidence & Credibility. Planning a conference? Julie happily travels coast to coast and beyond, to present customized activities. With Julie's help gone will be awkwardness, embarrassment and faux-pas.

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10 Secrets Of A Happy Workplace

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John Havens, founder of the non-profit organization, The H(app)athon Project suggests using technology to track our health, stress and happiness levels could be the the key.
He sites Cardio, which enables you to measure your heart rate using an iPhone camera> He even suggests tapping into Affectiva, an app used by ad agencies to read people’s emotions through their facial expressions.
In the same vein, Action For Happiness promotes the Check Your Mood site on its website.

If the drudgery of office life is getting you down, you could do worse than get back to nature. According to research carried out by City & Guilds revealed gardeners and florists as the UK's happiest workers.
Although the results suggest this has less to do with flowers and foliage and more to do with freedom and free reign. As many as 80% said it was because they were able to manage their own workload and have autonomy over their daily tasks.

Google may have been voted America's 'Best Place To Work' four years running but for a while there was a serious happiness deficit among its female employees.
When its People Operations team (that's HR to you and me) investigated further they found that women who had recently given birth were leaving at twice Google's average departure rate.
In response Google boosted its industry-standard maternity leave plan from 12 weeks paid time off (just seven outside California) to five months of full pay and full benefits. After the new plan was implemented the attrition rate for new mothers halved, dropping down to the average rate for the rest of the firm.

You know that feeling when you're so engrossed in what you're doing you're completely oblivous to what's going on around you? Well, according to psychologists, this state is the epitome of true work happiness.
According the the Hungarian psychology professor, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and doctoral student at Harvard, Matt Killingsworth, the quality of our mental focus in the moment is the key to happiness while mind-wandering is its nemesis.
Csikszentmihalyi found that we are happiest when we enter the 'flow state' - an ecstatic experience of total concentration that requires our complete attention due to its difficulty.

A programme called TinyPulse allows bosses to gather employee feedback via weekly anonymous surveys and provides a channel through which workers can raise issues and communicate with their bosses.

New research published by the Employee Ownership Association and sponsored by the John Lewis Partnership shows that staff working in employee owned companies (organisations in which all staff have company shares) are happier, healthier and more secure than workers without a stake in their company.

Craig A Jackson, Professor of Occupational Health Psychology at Birmingham City University investigates the idea of whether clinical hypnosis could be used in the workplace to improve health and stress of employees.
He proffers some fairly weighty arguments in favour of the notion but would you really feel comfortable allowing your boss to do a Deren Brown on you?

The Navy nuclear-powered Navy submarine, the USS Santa Fe had a reputation of having the worst performance, the lowest morale and the lowest retention of all the Navy’s nuclear submarines. There were often delays for launches, and repairs could be repeated multiple times.
When a new captain was brought in, one of the first changes he made was to insist that crew members didn't simply follow orders without thinking for themselves. If they thought something was wrong, they were to speak up and not simply following instructions blindly. As a result of his changes, the crew was able to pass an inspection by senior officers no problem.

Used by some companies to assist with recruitment, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.
"Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgements sounder, and your life closer to your heart's desire," said founder, Isabel Briggs Myers.

Jess Lee, the 30-year-old CEO of style e-commerce site, Polyvore, believes simplicity is at the heart of work happiness. In January she implemented a company-wide "simplification month".
"To get the company down to its simplest possible state, I asked everyone to make a list of all the work they do, identify what was most impactful, and then cut, optimize or simplify everything else," she says.
"In that one month, the product engineering team deleted some of the product features that were less used, we changed some of the ad programs, we simplified some of the communication processes inside the company, we refactored a lot of code and we streamlined our user support processes.
"I think we got the company down to a simpler state and people had a clearer mind because their to-do lists were cleaner and simpler."